The words that have been taken out have been replaced by their part of speech in bold and
their syllable count in parenthesis. While there are some minor differences between the parts
of speech used, these poems are clearly very similar. However, they become identical if one
applies the definitions of word types Carroll laid out in his book Symbolic Logic
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. I will not
bore you with a summary of all the terms Carroll defines, but will instead constrain myself to
the ones that are necessary.
Firstly, “the Universe contains ‘Things’ (For Example, ‘I’, ‘London…)”(Symbolic
Logic 1). ‘Things’ are essentially nouns. ‘Things’ have ‘Attributes’, that describe them. An
‘Adjunct’ is “any Attribute, or any Set of Attributes” (1). For example, ‘red’ is an attribute,
but can also be called an adjunct. Additionally, any set of attributes such as “red, scented and
full-blown” (1) may be called an adjunct. A ‘Class’ is a group of things. Carroll says, “the
formation of Classes, is a Mental Process, in which we imagine that we have put together, in
a group, certain Things.” (2). A class can be divided into smaller classes by considering
attributes (for example, “books” is a class, as is ‘old books’ and ‘new books’). Finally, a
‘Name’ is a “word (or phrase) which conveys the idea of a Thing, with the idea of an
Adjunct” (5). Carroll provides many examples of this: “the words ‘Thing’, ‘Treasure,’
‘Town’, and the phrases ‘valuable thing’, ‘material artificial thing consisting of houses and
streets’…’Town paved with gold,’ ‘old English Book’” (5).
In the original linguistic breakdown, the phrases “you’re at” and “you are,” as well as
“you fly” and “so high,” forced the analysis to look a little different. However, in a Carrollian
logic breakdown, all four phrases can be considered adjuncts allowing the analysis to be
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Braithwaite points out the following: “Whereas the works on Trigonometry, Geometry, and
Determinants were published over the name of Charles L. Dodgson…the two small works on
Logic—The Game of Logic and Symbolic Logic, Part I—and the two interesting logical notes
in Mind appeared over the signature of the creator of Alice” (174).